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Decentraland

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See also: Metaverse
Decentraland
Information
Type Virtual world
Developer Decentraland Foundation, DCL Regenesis Labs
Operating System Windows, MacOS, Android, IOS
Devices Windows and Mac computers, Android and iOS smartphones
Release Date February 20, 2020 (public launch)
Website https://decentraland.org


Decentraland is a 3D virtual world in which ownership of land parcels, avatar items and names is recorded as tokens on the Ethereum blockchain and, for most wearables and emotes, on the Polygon network. Its 2017 white paper, by Esteban Ordano, Ariel Meilich, Yemel Jardi and Manuel Araoz, called it "a virtual reality platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain", with land held as non-fungible tokens called LAND and bought with an ERC-20 token called MANA.[1] The world opened to the public on February 20, 2020, as a web application.[2] In October 2024 Decentraland moved from the browser to a downloadable desktop client for Windows and macOS, and mobile apps for Android and iOS followed in 2026.[3][4]

Despite the "virtual reality" label in its founding documents, Decentraland has no official VR client. A community team built a PC VR version with grants from the Decentraland DAO in 2021 and 2022, and the open-source Godot-based client in Decentraland's code repositories lists Meta Quest and OpenXR devices among its targets, but as of October 2026 the platform's own documentation lists only desktop and mobile apps.[5][6][7]

Reviewed 15 October 2026. Checked all dates, figures, quotes and VR-support claims against the white paper, official blog and docs, DAO proposal records, GitHub READMEs, App Store data and the cited press reports. About review dates.

History

Origins and token sale (2015-2017)

According to the white paper, the team began working on Decentraland in 2015. Its first experiment, which the authors called the "Stone Age", was a blockchain record of pixels on an infinite 2D grid, each storing an owner and a color. In late 2016 the team began the "Bronze Age", a 3D world divided into parcels whose owners could attach a hash reference to a file on a modified Bitcoin blockchain; visitors downloaded parcel content over a distributed hash table and BitTorrent. The white paper described the next stage, the "Iron Age", as a social world with peer-to-peer communication, a scripting system for interactive content and fast in-world payments, built on an Ethereum smart contract that keeps a ledger of LAND parcels identified by (x, y) coordinates.[1]

Decentraland sold its MANA token in an initial coin offering in 2017. GamesBeat reported in December 2017 that the sale raised a total of 25 million US dollars from 4,000 investors; Bloomberg later put the figure at about 26 million US dollars.[8][9] The first auction of virtual land parcels began on December 15, 2017. In GamesBeat's report that day, project lead Ariel Meilich said that "the ownership of items is cryptographically established on a smart contract, which prevents anyone from stealing or altering users' property". GamesBeat also reported that landowners would have to wait until Decentraland released its web client in early 2018 before they could publish content on their parcels.[8] Bloomberg reported in June 2018 that the auction raised a further 28 million US dollars, that the map, called Genesis City, held a fixed supply of about 90,000 plots, and that resale prices had risen sharply, with one plot reselling for 200,000 US dollars.[9]

Public launch (2020)

Decentraland opened to the public on February 20, 2020. The launch announcement listed four products: the World Explorer web application for visiting the world, an SDK for building interactive 3D scenes, a no-code Builder for placing scenes on owned LAND, and a Marketplace for trading LAND, avatar wearables and names. A four-day treasure hunt with prizes worth a total of 100,000 US dollars accompanied the launch.[2] The Decentraland Foundation, which describes itself as an independent non-profit, dates to 2020.[10]

Brand events and land sales (2021-2022)

During the 2021 boom in non-fungible tokens, companies and brands opened spaces in Decentraland. In June 2021 the auction house Sotheby's opened a replica of its London galleries on New Bond Street in the platform's Voltaire Art District, timed with its first curated NFT sale.[11] In November 2021 Tokens.com bought 116 parcels in the Fashion Street district for 618,000 MANA, worth nearly 2.5 million US dollars at the time, through Metaverse Group, a company in which Tokens.com held a 50 percent stake.[12] The first Metaverse Fashion Week ran in Decentraland's Luxury Fashion District from March 24 to 27, 2022, with participants including Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce&Gabbana, Elie Saab and Paco Rabanne; the London retailer Selfridges opened the event and used it to launch a metaverse store.[13]

User numbers dispute (2022)

On October 7, 2022, CoinDesk reported data from the analytics site DappRadar showing 38 "active users" for Decentraland in the previous 24 hours, against a market capitalization of around 1.3 billion US dollars. DappRadar counted a user as a unique wallet address interacting with the platform's smart contracts. Decentraland's Sam Hamilton told CoinDesk that DappRadar "doesn't track our users, only people interacting with our contracts" and said the platform averaged 8,000 users per day.[14] In a blog post on October 11, 2022, Decentraland said its internal data showed about 8,000 daily active users and 56,697 monthly active users in September 2022. It counted a visitor as active once they moved out of the parcel where they entered the world, and it did not count bot accounts or users with script blockers.[15]

Desktop client and mobile apps (2024-2026)

On October 21, 2024, Decentraland released a beta of "Decentraland 2.0", a rebuilt client that moved the platform away from a web-based experience to a desktop program for Mac and Windows. The release added daily quests with wearable or emote rewards, mini-games, profile badges, chat bubbles above avatars, loading of scenes as far as 80 parcels away and a separate Creator Hub application for building scenes. The announcement said the new architecture had "the potential to expand to VR, mobile, and beyond".[3] The official desktop client is built with Unity and published as open source under the Apache 2.0 license.[16]

On March 31, 2026, Decentraland announced that the desktop client was available on the Epic Games Store and that an Android app had been released on Google Play, with an iOS version to follow.[17][18] The iOS app, sold on Apple's App Store by the Decentraland Foundation, was released there on April 7, 2026, and requires iOS 18 or later.[19] Decentraland's documentation states that the mobile apps are not currently available in the United Kingdom, citing crypto gaming regulations.[20] The Next Web noted that MANA was trading at about 0.08 US dollars at the time, down from a peak above 5 US dollars.[18]

Features

Land, names and worlds

LAND parcels are non-fungible tokens in an Ethereum smart contract, each with unique (x, y) coordinates and a reference to the content its owner publishes there. In the original design, unclaimed LAND was obtained by burning MANA at a fixed rate of 1,000 MANA per parcel, and MANA was also meant for buying goods and services in the world.[1] A single-parcel scene measures 16 by 16 meters; larger scenes combine several parcels, and the documentation sets per-parcel limits on file size and file count along with a maximum scene height of 330 meters.[21] Parcels can be merged into Estates, and the Marketplace sells LAND, Estates, wearables, emotes and unique NAMEs; most wearables and emotes are traded on Polygon rather than on the Ethereum main network.[22][23]

Creators who do not own LAND can rent parcels or publish to a World, a personal 3D space separate from the Genesis City map that comes with a Decentraland NAME. Scenes for both are built with the Creator Hub application.[24] Decentraland's documentation notes that the blockchain records ownership of assets but is not used for scene state or player positions, which are kept on players' machines or on servers run by scene owners.[23]

Clients and system requirements

Client Platforms Maintainer Status (October 2026)
World Explorer (web) Web browsers Decentraland Public launch February 20, 2020; superseded by the desktop client, introduced in October 2024 as a move away from the web-based experience[2][3]
Decentraland 2.0 desktop client (Unity) Windows, MacOS; also on the Epic Games Store Decentraland Foundation Current official desktop client[3][10][17]
Mobile app Android, IOS DCL Regenesis Labs (Godot Explorer code base) Android from March 2026, iOS from April 2026[17][19][4][7]
Community VR client PC VR headsets (SteamVR, Windows Mixed Reality, Quest via PC link) Ong Innovations team, DAO-funded Grant-funded port; no official release[5]

Decentraland's documentation lists minimum requirements for the desktop client of Windows 10 64-bit with an Nvidia RTX 20 series or AMD Radeon RX 5000 series GPU, 6 GB of video memory and 16 GB of RAM, or macOS 11 Big Sur on an Apple M1.[4] The Android app's package name is org.decentraland.godotexplorer.[4]

Governance

The Decentraland DAO controls the LAND, Estate and Marketplace smart contracts, holds a treasury of MANA and other tokens, and lets holders of MANA, LAND and NAMEs vote on grants and on lists such as banned names, points of interest and the community-run servers that host the world.[7][25] Under a structure approved in November 2024 and March 2025, an elected five-member DAO Council oversees DCL Regenesis Labs, the DAO's executive arm, which runs grants and develops alternative clients and SDK tools. The Decentraland Foundation protects the project's intellectual property and domains, maintains the desktop client and runs core services such as decentraland.org and the Marketplace.[10] Yemel Jardi, one of the white paper's authors, was quoted as executive director of Decentraland in March 2026, and Gino Cingolani as executive director of DCL Regenesis Labs.[17]

Virtual reality support

Decentraland was described from the start in VR terms. The white paper called it a virtual reality platform, and in a 2018 Bloomberg report Meilich spoke of the time "once virtual reality becomes a mass movement".[1][9] Its official clients are flat-screen desktop and mobile applications.[4]

The first funded VR effort came from the developers of Byldr, a no-code creation app for Quest 2 and HoloLens 2. In December 2021 the DAO approved a 220,000 US dollar grant for Byldr to export scenes to Decentraland and to let users view Decentraland in VR and AR headsets. The proposal noted that Decentraland "can only be experienced and built through a flat, 2D screen".[26] In a follow-up proposal approved in May 2022, the same team, led by Sean Ong of Ong Innovations, reported that it had ported Decentraland to PC-based VR headsets, including SteamVR headsets, Quest through a PC link and Windows Mixed Reality, and requested up to 240,000 US dollars to bring the client to the Quest natively and replace keyboard and mouse interactions with controller-based ones. The team wrote that running the Decentraland kernel, the component that handles scene state, on an Android-based headset would take significant work.[5]

Two later requests for 240,000 US dollars, submitted in November and December 2022, were rejected.[27][28] Cointelegraph reported in January 2023 that more than three-quarters of voters opposed the December proposal, and quoted Ong as saying the platform was "fundamentally incompatible with VR".[29] A smaller maintenance grant of 69,000 US dollars for the VR client, proposed in March 2023, was approved, while an October 2023 renewal, which included publishing the client on Meta's App Lab store, was rejected.[30][31]

A separate DAO-funded team, the Protocol Squad, began building alternative clients on the Godot and Bevy engines. Its April 2024 renewal grant of 155,560 US dollars stated that the team had launched Android and iOS clients and that "VR is working very well" but that the interface still needed to move to 3D interactions.[32] The resulting Decentraland Godot Explorer, written in Godot and Rust, lists Linux, Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and VR among its platforms, with VR support for Quest and other OpenXR devices, and its build pipeline produces the iOS and Android builds.[6] As of October 2026 Decentraland's official documentation says the platform is "available as a high-fidelity desktop app and as a mobile app" and does not list a VR version.[7]

Reception

Bloomberg reported large resale gains for early landowners in 2018.[9] Decentraland disputed the October 2022 DappRadar figures, saying that wallet-based counts left out visitors, such as guests, who never made a transaction.[14][15] In its March 2026 report on the Epic Games Store and Android launches, The Next Web cited Decentraland's own claim of about 847,000 monthly unique visitors to its web client in late 2025.[18]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Esteban Ordano, Ariel Meilich, Yemel Jardi, Manuel Araoz (2017). "Decentraland: A blockchain-based virtual world (white paper)". Decentraland. https://decentraland.org/whitepaper.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "The gates to Decentraland have opened!". Decentraland Blog. 2020-02-20. https://decentraland.org/blog/announcements/decentraland-launch/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 "Decentraland 2.0 is LIVE!". Decentraland Blog. 2024-10-21. https://decentraland.org/blog/announcements/decentraland-2-0-is-live. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Decentraland 101". Decentraland Docs. https://docs.decentraland.org/faqs/decentraland-101. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Continued Development and Expansion of Decentraland VR Client". Decentraland DAO Governance. 2022-05-17. https://decentraland.org/governance/proposal/?id=8fe0e0a0-d62b-11ec-b521-2f98ffa6ccb0. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Decentraland Godot Explorer (README)". GitHub, decentraland organization. https://github.com/decentraland/godot-explorer. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 "About Decentraland". Decentraland Docs. https://docs.decentraland.org/introduction/about-decentraland. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Ben Dickson (2017-12-15). "Decentraland shows the potential of blockchain and VR combined". GamesBeat. https://gamesbeat.com/decentraland-shows-the-potential-of-blockchain-and-vr-combined/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 "Making a killing in virtual real estate". The Irish Times (from Bloomberg). 2018-06-13. https://www.irishtimes.com/business/personal-finance/making-a-killing-in-virtual-real-estate-1.3528861. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 "Mission, Vision and Roles". Decentraland Docs. 2026-10. https://docs.decentraland.org/dao/dao/mission-vision-and-roles. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  11. ↑ Kabir Jhala (2021-06-07). "Crypto-crazed Sotheby's launches first virtual gallery in digital metaverse Decentraland". The Art Newspaper. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/blog/sotheby-s-decentraland-nft-virtual. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  12. ↑ MK Manoylov (2021-11-23). "Canadian investment company buys $2.5 million worth of virtual real estate in Decentraland". The Block. https://www.theblock.co/linked/125255/canadian-investment-company-buys-2-5-million-worth-of-virtual-real-estate-in-decentraland. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  13. ↑ "First Metaverse Fashion Week announced". Gulf News. 2022-03-21. https://gulfnews.com/kurator/dare/first-metaverse-fashion-week-announced-1.1647859603099. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Cam Thompson (2022-10-07). "It's Lonely in the Metaverse: DappRadar Data Suggests Decentraland Has 38 'Daily Active' Users in $1.3B Ecosystem". CoinDesk. https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2022/10/07/its-lonely-in-the-metaverse-decentralands-38-daily-active-users-in-a-13b-ecosystem/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "How Many DAU Does Decentraland Have?". Decentraland Blog. 2022-10-11. https://decentraland.org/blog/announcements/how-many-dau-does-decentraland-have/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  16. ↑ "decentraland/unity-explorer". GitHub. https://github.com/decentraland/unity-explorer. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 "Decentraland Launches on Epic Games Store; Android Mobile App Now Live, iOS Coming Soon". GlobeNewswire press release (via Generation NT). 2026-03-31. https://www.generation-nt.com/communiques-presse/decentraland-launches-on-epic-games-store-android-mobile-app-now-2073378. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Alina Maria Stan (2026-03-31). "Decentraland just launched on the Epic Games Store". The Next Web. https://thenextweb.com/news/decentraland-epic-games-store-mobile-launch. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Decentraland". App Store (Apple). https://apps.apple.com/us/app/decentraland/id6478403840. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  20. ↑ "Decentraland on Mobile". Decentraland Docs. https://docs.decentraland.org/mobile-app/mobile-app. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  21. ↑ "Scene Limitations". Decentraland Docs. https://docs.decentraland.org/creator/scenes-sdk7/optimizing/scene-limitations. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  22. ↑ "Marketplace". Decentraland Docs. https://docs.decentraland.org/marketplace/marketplace. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "About the Blockchain". Decentraland Docs. https://docs.decentraland.org/blockchain-integration/ethereum-essentials. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  24. ↑ "Creating in Decentraland". Decentraland Docs. https://docs.decentraland.org/faqs/creating-in-decentraland. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  25. ↑ "What is the DAO". Decentraland Docs. https://docs.decentraland.org/dao/dao/what-is-the-dao. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  26. ↑ "Update existing VR and AR experience creator/builder to support Decentraland". Decentraland DAO Governance. 2021-12-16. https://decentraland.org/governance/proposal/?id=088fc210-5e26-11ec-8188-4352ce3d30e7. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  27. ↑ "Continued Enhancement of Decentraland VR Clients". Decentraland DAO Governance. 2022-11-09. https://decentraland.org/governance/proposal/?id=b7a5bb60-5fd8-11ed-9e27-9944727da95a. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  28. ↑ "Continued Enhancement of Decentraland VR Clients - Resubmission". Decentraland DAO Governance. 2022-12-14. https://decentraland.org/governance/proposal/?id=2b8ee5a0-7b87-11ed-ad27-015f26e7c35c. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  29. ↑ Luke Huigsloot (2023-01-06). "Why isn't there a VR client yet for Decentraland or The Sandbox?". Cointelegraph. https://cointelegraph.com/news/why-isn-t-there-a-vr-client-yet-for-decentraland-or-the-sandbox. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  30. ↑ "Continued Maintenance of Decentraland VR Cleint". Decentraland DAO Governance. 2023-03-21. https://decentraland.org/governance/proposal/?id=47aac310-c783-11ed-a85e-7ddcee7c678f. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  31. ↑ "Continued Maintenance of Decentraland VR Client". Decentraland DAO Governance. 2023-10-17. https://decentraland.org/governance/proposal/?id=3462ebd7-e9d9-4d7c-9b39-62fa7a85f7e9. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  32. ↑ "Renewal New DAO Explorers: Mobile, VR, and Desktop (in Godot & Bevy)". Decentraland DAO Governance. 2024-04-12. https://decentraland.org/governance/proposal/?id=c58ef920-ce49-481a-ab52-dba2747d9770. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
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